Wednesday: Living Nonviolently

John Dear, SJ we were told this morning, “believes and lives peace through justice.” He is the “internationally recognized voice for peace and nonviolence” and is the author of many books on the subject.

Today John Dear urged us as CSJPs to speak the truth, resist war, practice nonviolence, pray, and follow the nonviolent Jesus. We have no need to be afraid in our mission as peacemakers, he said. We have our own Constitutions which should compel us to take a stand, be the voice ofpeace in our poor world which at this time is living in an Orwellian nightmare of war.

We are blessed in having such a powerful heritage from Margaret Anna Cusack, an historic peacemaker. The question for us as we follow her lead is how to become stronger voices for peace. We have to ask how our life as a Congregation fits into the life of Jesus.

John spoke dynamically and passionately about formative influences in his journey into nonviolence – Martin Luther King, the Berrigan brothers, and Ignacio Ellacuria, who told him bluntly he could no longer be for the reign of God unless he could stand up publicly and actively against the anti-reign; silence would be complicity in war.

In our own lives we can harbor violence about the smallest things so we must work towards becoming communities of nonviolence. In order to be faithful to the journey, John asked us to be:
contemplatives of peace, full time activists, students and teachers of active nonviolence, visionaries of nonviolence and prophets of peace.

John asked us to make our lives a journey of peace, to breathe peace as we walk in the footsteps of the nonviolent Christ, remembering those who have led the way in our recent past – Dorothy Day, Gandhi, Daniel and Phillip Berrigan and Martin Luther King, who said “the choice is no
longer violence or nonviolence, it is nonviolence or nonexistence.”

John asked us to think and talk in our table groups about five questions:
1. How do I define gospel nonviolence?
2. When have I experienced it?
3. What’s the most difficult challenge for me on the journey
of nonviolence?
4. Jesus – was he violent or nonviolent?
5. How can we take another step, this week, on the road
to active nonviolent peace?

Responding to comments from table groups, John said that we in America and England live in a
world of total war and there is a subtle spirituality of violence all around us. We are urgently needed as leaven for the new church of peace, because war is not the will of God.

In the afternoon, John focused on the Beatitudes, saying that Gandhi read Matthew, Chapters 5,6 and 7 every day, and we would do well to do likewise.The Beatitudes – the teachings of Christ our peace – are the blueprint for nonviolent action. Can we as a peacemaking community fulfill the demands of these beatitudes? He ended the day by asking us to reflect on
the following powerful and disturbing questions:

How are we already living out the beatitudes of peace?
How do we love our enemies?
What is our image of God? Is our God non-violent?
How are we peacemakers?
What decision by the Congregation will help us become
beatitude people?

John Dear’s powerful witness and challenge was followed up by an invitation from Annie Welch and the Liturgy Committee to consider taking the Pax Christi vow of nonviolence. This will be considered as we continue in the Chapter process.